


Fortune Teller

by thingswithwings



Category: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-06
Updated: 2004-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:00:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is what happens when I try to mimic O'Brian's incredibly twee narrative style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fortune Teller

"Cease, cease, I pray!" Stephen laughed. "Yours may be rough and callused, Jack, but my delicate surgeon's hands won't take much more of this!"

Jack laughed too, and put down his violin. "I've seen more calluses on your fingertips than on a good many rough and ready sailors, Stephen."

"That may be, and still I call for a rest. If only for a bit of brandy." Stephen rose and poured them each a small glass. He handed one to Jack with a little ironic bow, and Jack accepted it with an exaggeratedly sombre incline of his head.

"By God, it is quite late!" Jack exclaimed, looking at the burnt-down candles.

"Indeed, Jack, we've been at it for hours. No wonder my fingers feel as if I'd been handling a Dendrobates Lehmanni."

Jack just raised an eyebrow.

"A poisonous frog."

Jack laughed, and, setting down his brandy, grabbed up Stephen's hand by the wrist. He examined the fingertips carefully. "Come, come, Stephen, these are hardly red and ravaged."

Stephen nodded, surrendering the point, and moved to pull his hand back, but Jack kept his grip and stared down into Stephen's palm.

"What are you doing, Jack?"

"Most extraordinary. Do you know, Stephen, that I once met an old gypsy woman who claimed that my destiny was written in the lines of my palms?" Jack bent his head in closer to Stephen's hand, his breath coasting, warm and moist, over the skin of his wrist. Stephen placed his brandy next to Jack's on the table.

"Surely you're not telling me that you believe in palmistry."

"No, no, of course not. But still these lines are most fascinating..." The Captain's hand on his wrist was warm and rough, his fingertips blunt against his palm.

"Tell me what they say, then." Stephen's voice was low and playful, his breath tickling the side of Jack's ear.

Jack glanced up from the subject of his scrutiny and smiled slowly. "I shall do no such thing. A man's destiny ought to be made moment to moment, by the action of his will." He did not release Stephen's wrist.

"You will hold my future for ransom, then?" His eyes met Jack's and held them.

"No, good doctor, I do the opposite. I give it to you as a gift." They were standing very close together, Stephen's hand still held between them. The Captain's breath was warm and smelled of good brandy.

"Then you are a great friend indeed, for I can think of no higher gift to give," Stephen answered. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Jack's.

For a moment the Captain didn't respond, his lips immobile beneath those of his friend. But soon he found his ardour and began returning Stephen's soft kisses with caresses of his own. As he did so, a low, keening sound pulled out of his throat. Stephen's hands moved cup the sides of Jack's face, tentatively at first, then with growing confidence as Jack's fingertips moved hesitantly to the doctor's hips. The sound of their breathing was harsh and loud between kisses, seeming to echo off of the creaking wood around them and the water outside. Stephen kept his eyes closed, afraid to open them and dispel the dream.

As if Stephen's thought had brought the corresponding action, Jack slid his hands up Stephen's body to his shoulders and pushed him gently away. Stephen opened his eyes to see Jack's head bent, his eyes closed. His hands rested on Stephen's shoulders. When he spoke, his voice was soft, but strained.

"What do we do here, Stephen?"

The question hung heavy in the air. Still Jack did not move his hands from Stephen's chest. Then, greatly daring, Stephen leaned forward and captured Jack's mouth again. The kisses were desperate, awkward, punctuated by Stephen's half-articulate utterances.

"Please don't, Jack, don't speak, we...oh..."

This time he did not let Jack break away, but pressed into him, slipping a long thigh against his friend's, curling his arms about Jack's waist. He was a good three inches taller than the Captain, and had to lean down to him, but he felt Jack reaching up to meet him. Their caresses grew quick, sloppy. The air was still and heavy in the warm room.

Stephen's hands found their way under Jack's shirt, running along the warm skin at the curve of his back. Jack moaned a little into his mouth, sending a thrill of answering pleasure through Stephen's body. The doctor began to mouth the skin of Jack's neck and throat, stooping further to suck gently on the place where his neck met his shoulder. As Stephen kissed his throat, Jack began, somewhat hesitantly, to work Stephen's vest off of his body. His blunt fingers began to undo the knot of material at Stephen's throat.

"Stephen, I want..." he began, panting a little as his fingers slipped on the buttons of the doctor's shirt.

Stephen made no sound in answer, but succeeded in sliding Jack's shirt off of his shoulders. He ran his hands along the bare, tanned skin, from Jack's neck down his shoulders and arms, rubbing up along his ribs and chest. As he brushed a nipple, Jack drew in his breath a little, and Stephen pressed his thumb to it and rubbed deliberately up and down. Jack made a little growling noise and pulled him closer, cupping the back of Stephen's neck and pulling him back in for another long, hard kiss.

When they broke for air, Stephen asked, "Where...Jack, can we..."

Jack nodded at the wooden bench on the other side of the room. Stephen looked dubious.

"Or, if you prefer my hammock..."

"The bench will suffice, I think." Stephen's flushed face and quick breathing belied his calm manner. As they sat on the bench, their awkwardness returned.

"Have you done this before?" the doctor managed to keep the quavering out of his voice as he asked.

The Captain didn't blush, but dropped his gaze momentarily. "Not since I was a midshipman, and at that age..."

Stephen nodded. "Jack, I would like to...if you would permit me." He ran his hand down Jack's belly and over the bulge in his trousers by way of illustration. Jack shuddered slightly and nodded, swinging one leg over the other side of the bench so that he was sitting astride it. Stephen echoed the motion, then drew Jack back into a long kiss.

As he did so, Stephen unbuttoned the trousers and pulled the flap away, then burrowed through Jack's overshirt and drawers. His fingers closed at last on hard, warm flesh, and Jack shuddered again, leaning his head on Stephen's shoulder, his right arm stealing around Stephen's back and then burrowing down into Stephen's trousers to cup his arse, squeezing, running his callused fingertips along the soft skin. Stephen's hands stroked Jack to full hardness and length, pulling, twisting, drawing back the foreskin and glancing his thumbs over the sensitive head. Jack mouthed his neck and shoulder, kissing and sucking and breathing over the doctor's white skin. Stephen's hands grew quicker, more desperate as he bent to return the favour, pressing his lips to Jack's shoulder. The hand down the back of his trousers had begun to clench harder, massaging, the nails scraping against his skin. Jack's other hand gripped Stephen's side, rubbing against his side and belly. He felt himself hot and hard and wet beneath his trousers, but worked his hands on Jack, knowing by his sudden gasps that he was close to the edge.

Jack's fingers dug into Stephen's flesh, and his teeth into Stephen's shoulder. Stephen continued to stroke his hands over Jack's length until Jack half-collapsed, panting, on his shoulder.

"Stephen, I..." Jack began.

Stephen silenced him again, lips and tongue, and Jack responded eagerly, unable to help himself. Stephen's mouth was hot, his tongue a sweet slide against Jack's own. Jack's hands, still stroking beneath Stephen's clothes, began slowly to shift, to unbutton and pull back the fabric of his trousers and drawers. Stephen drew in a long, shuddering breath, his hands going still at his sides as Jack kissed his way down his chest to the heavy length in his hand. With one solid fist curled around the base, he bent and slowly took the rest in his mouth. He licked slowly up, then down, grinning a bit as Stephen's eyes fluttered closed with pleasure. The doctor had been on edge for far too long now, and it wasn't long before he surrendered to Jack's rough fingers and clever tongue, pleasure coursing through his body. He breathed out Jack's name in a long, low exhalation as he thrust into the Captain's mouth. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to the sight of Jack spitting calmly into his pocket-handkerchief.

He felt exposed, so rearranged his clothing and rebuttoned his trousers. Jack did the same. After a few moments they dared to look at each other again. As their eyes met, they leaned in again to kiss, more slowly this time, more practised, each beginning to get accustomed to the rough scrape of stubble against his cheek.

"Will you let me speak now, Stephen?" the Captain asked after they drew apart.

"I am afraid of what you will say." Stephen smiled shakily.

"Courage, man, I am not the French fleet."

"I feel as though we are on very volatile ground, Jack. As though there were portent of an earthquake below us."

Jack frowned, furrowing his brow. "Your natural history metaphors often leave me cold, I am afraid. Speak plainly."

After a long pause, Stephen spoke. "I . . . don't know what to say, Jack. Or what to do." He exhaled softly, then added, "Though I would have you know that I would never do or say anything to harm you or your reputation on this ship. I could never betray you in that fashion."

Jack smiled, teasingly. "But you would betray me in another fashion?"

Stephen joined his friend by smiling back. "Of course not. Or..." he paused, then locked his gaze with Jack's. "Or only by loving too much, beyond the boundaries of the law that you serve."

"It is you who are my moral compass, Stephen. Your loyalty is not in doubt, to me or to King and country."

"Then what do you ask of me?"

"Nothing. I can ask nothing of you, old friend, and I can deny you nothing." Jack's expression softened. "That is all I would have you know."

Stephen's smile broke into a full grin, crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Then you would still withhold the portents of my future?"

"Alas, yes. It is a burden to have such knowledge, but I shall bear up under it."

"Undoubtedly."

"Though I must note, as your palmist, that your fingers no longer seem tired at all."

"The poison must've rubbed off."

At this, Jack blanched, then laughed. "Come, Stephen," he intoned, "the brandy wants finishing. And there is, now that I think on it, one portion of your future that I can reveal."

"Oh?" Stephen asked, standing with the Captain and walking back to the table. "What's that?"

"I am afraid, old friend, that I shall have to re-examine your palm to tell you." And Jack gripped his friend's hand tightly in his and, raising it to his lips, pressed a kiss to the base of the thumb.

Stephen laughed, and drank his brandy.


End file.
